Chapter 2 - Account Seventeen
Mara read the message three times.
Her mother had been dead for eleven years.
Elena Bellandi had died after what Vincent always described as a brief illness.
There had been no mystery.
At least Mara had never believed there was.
“What does my mother have to do with this?” Mara asked.
Celeste shook her head.
“I don't know.”
“Give me the phone.”
Celeste handed it over.
The number was blocked from return calls.
Nikolai approached but stopped at a respectful distance.
“What happened?”
Mara showed him.
His expression changed at the words ACCOUNT 17.
“You recognize that?”
“Not the number.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
Nikolai looked toward Vincent.
Mara followed his gaze.
Her father was staring at Celeste's phone.
And he looked terrified.
“Dad,” Mara said.
Vincent turned toward the house.
Nikolai blocked his path without touching him.
“Where are you going?”
“My house.”
“Mara asked you a question.”
Vincent looked at Nikolai.
“This does not concern you.”
“Four point eight million dollars of mine traveled through your company. At the moment, almost everything concerns me.”
Mara stepped closer.
“What is Account Seventeen?”
Vincent said nothing.
Celeste wrapped her coat around herself.
“Dad.”
His shoulders dropped.
“It's an old holding account.”
“Whose?”
“Elena's.”
Mara felt the world tilt.
“My mother had a company account?”
“She was a Bellandi executive before you were born.”
“You told me she never wanted anything to do with the company.”
“She changed her mind.”
“When?”
Vincent hesitated.
Mara knew the answer before he gave it.
“Before she died.”
Mara turned away.
For eleven years she had accepted a version of her mother carefully packaged by Vincent.
Elena loved books.
Elena hated conflict.
Elena wanted Mara to live quietly.
Elena had never understood business.
Apparently Elena had understood enough business to possess an account someone was now desperate to keep hidden.
Mara faced Nikolai.
“Where were you taking me?”
“My office.”
“Does it have secure network access?”
“Yes.”
“Then let's go.”
Vincent grabbed the edge of the folder.
“Mara, don't open that account.”
She looked at his hand.
“Why?”
“Because some things were buried for a reason.”
That decided it.
Mara pulled the folder free.
“I'll meet you there,” she told Nikolai.
Forty minutes later, she sat in a private conference room on the top floor of a downtown Milwaukee building.
Nikolai had given her a computer, network access, and silence.
She appreciated the last one most.
Celeste had insisted on coming.
She sat across from Mara, still wearing the blue dress beneath her coat, looking increasingly furious as Mara reconstructed their family's past.
Nikolai stood near the windows.
“You really didn't know?” Celeste asked him.
“About the proposed marriage?”
“Yes.”
“I knew your father wanted a personal alliance.”
“And you didn't ask what that meant?”
“I assumed equity.”
Celeste laughed bitterly.
“Of course you did.”
Nikolai looked at her.
“If it matters, I would never settle a financial obligation by requiring someone to marry me.”
Celeste's expression softened slightly.
“It matters.”
Mara typed another command.
“Found it.”
They moved closer.
Account 17 had been archived.
But not closed.
That distinction mattered.
The account had been created twelve years earlier under Elena Bellandi’s executive credentials.
For months, nothing unusual appeared.
Then Mara saw a recurring transfer.
$25,000.
Every month.
Same destination.
“What is Northstar Consulting?” Celeste asked.
“Probably not consulting.”
Mara searched deeper.
Northstar had dissolved nine years earlier.
Yet payments continued through another entity.
Then another.
Shell after shell.
Nikolai pulled up a chair.
“Can you follow it?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
Mara gave him a look.
He lifted both hands.
“I won't say one day.”
“Good.”
She continued.
Three hours later, the pattern emerged.
Elena had been moving money.
But not out of Bellandi.
Into it.
“What am I looking at?” Celeste asked.
Mara leaned back.
“My mother was covering losses.”
“How much?”
“Millions.”
Nikolai looked at the dates.
“Where did she get the money?”
“That’s what I don't understand.”
Mara opened the archived corporate structure.
There.
A private trust.
Elena Bellandi Beneficial Holdings.
Mara clicked.
Access denied.
She tried an old executive recovery key.
Denied.
Then Celeste leaned closer.
“What about that?”
A note appeared beneath the authentication field.
SECOND BENEFICIARY VERIFICATION REQUIRED.
“Second beneficiary?” Mara whispered.
She opened the registration document.
Two names appeared.
ELENA MARIA BELLANDI.
And below it:
MARA ELENA BELLANDI.
Mara stared.
Her mother had created a trust in both their names.
She had been twenty-two when Elena died.
Vincent had never mentioned it.
“How much?” Nikolai asked quietly.
Mara checked the last archived valuation.
Her throat tightened.
“Thirty-one million.”
Celeste whispered, “What?”
Mara looked at her.
“Apparently Mom owned assets worth thirty-one million dollars.”
“And where are they now?”
Mara searched.
The assets had been liquidated eleven years ago.
Four days after Elena’s death.
Authorized by Vincent Bellandi.
Mara felt sick.
Celeste came around the table.
“Mara.”
“I'm fine.”
“You're shaking.”
“I said I'm fine.”
She wasn't.
Nikolai placed a glass of water beside her without speaking.
Mara drank.
Then she continued.
The liquidation proceeds had moved through Bellandi accounts.
Most disappeared into company debt.
Some went elsewhere.
One payment caught her attention.
$4.8 million.
The exact amount Nikolai had supposedly lost.
But the date was eleven years earlier.
“Nikolai.”
He saw it.
“That can't be my transfer.”
“No.”
“So why the same amount?”
Mara opened the destination.
VESPER HOLDINGS.
Nikolai's expression went blank.
“You know it.”
“My father owned it.”
“Owned?”
“He died ten years ago.”
The room became very quiet.
Celeste looked between them.
“So Mara's mother sent $4.8 million to Nikolai's father?”
“No,” Mara said.
“The transfer happened after she died.”
Nikolai leaned toward the screen.
“Who authorized it?”
Mara already knew.
VB-02.
Vincent Bellandi.
The same code used in the current transfers.
Someone was recreating a transaction from eleven years ago.
Exactly.
Amount.
Structure.
Sequence.
Everything.
“This isn't theft,” Mara whispered.
Nikolai looked at her.
“No.”
“It's a message.”
“To whom?”
Mara stared at the screen.
“To us.”
Her phone rang.
Vincent.
She answered.
“What?”
His breathing was ragged.
“Mara, listen carefully.”
“I'm listening.”
“Leave Nikolai's building.”
“Why?”
“Because I finally know who's moving the money.”
Mara stood.
“Who?”
Vincent did not answer.
A noise came through the phone.
Glass breaking.
Then footsteps.
“Dad?”
“Mara, whatever happens, do not come home.”
The line crackled.
“Dad!”
His voice returned, barely above a whisper.
“Your mother discovered the same thing you did.”
Mara gripped the phone.
“What thing?”
“That the money wasn't being stolen.”
Another sound.
A door opening.
Vincent inhaled sharply.
“Mara—”
The call ended.
She immediately called back.
No answer.
Celeste stood.
“What happened?”
Mara grabbed her coat.
“My father is in trouble.”
Nikolai was already moving.
They reached the elevator.
Before the doors opened, Mara's phone vibrated.
A photograph had arrived from Vincent's number.
It showed the marble foyer of the Bellandi mansion.
The floor was empty.
A broken whiskey glass lay near the stairs.
And on the table sat a document Mara had never seen.
Across the top were three words:
ELENA BELLANDI — TESTIMONY.
Beneath them was a handwritten note.
Mara enlarged the image.
Her mother's handwriting.
One sentence.
IF VINCENT EVER TELLS MARA THE TRUTH, SHE MUST ASK HIM WHO CELESTE'S MOTHER REALLY WAS.
The elevator doors opened.
Celeste read the sentence over Mara's shoulder.
Her face went white.
Then someone behind them said her name.
“Celeste?”
She turned.
May you like
A woman stood at the far end of the corridor.
Celeste whispered, “Mom?”
